


Acoustic Shave

by Smilla



Category: Supernatural
Genre: 2008, Episode: Mystery Spot, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-09-16
Updated: 2010-09-16
Packaged: 2017-10-11 21:30:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,789
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/117324
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Smilla/pseuds/Smilla
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>How many days you need to stop reacting to your brother's death?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Acoustic Shave

**Author's Note:**

> Acoustic Shave: the act of shaving with razor; not an electric shave. [From the urban dictionary]  
> [Originally posted [here](http://smilla02.livejournal.com/116011.html).]

Nothing new.

Tuesday, Dean dies. He is electrocuted while shaving.

Dean crumples onto the floor, his body spasms, his boots kick, unable to find traction on the spots where water has over flown from the shower. Dean's movements are jerky, looking for purchase, ease, something. It's not _fast_. Sam has time to see the whites of Dean's eyes as they roll inside his head, a remembered terror in them, before they close, slowly, like a curtain going down. Show's over, go home.

Except, Sam can't go home. He can only wake up. Again.

He falls into oblivion looking at the spit trailing on the left corner of Dean's mouth. He should have wiped it off.

***

Another Tuesday. Asia sings, _The heat of the moment showed in your eyes._ Dean laces his boots, walks, no, _swaggers_ , to the bathroom.

Sam follows, stops him right before he hooks up the electric razor. "Use this," he says, gives him a blue Gillette he's dug from the bottom of his duffel. Dean rolls his eyes.

"Take the fucking razor, Dean," Sam says.

Dean cocks his head. "You look like shit, Sam. Why don't you go lie down?"

Sam shakes his head. He doesn't need sleep. "I don't want to sleep. Just…" he waves at the bathroom, "do your stuff."

Dean shrugs, glances up. "I need shaving soap." The _you idiot_ is implied.

Sam runs to his duffel, comes back with a tin of soap.

Dean smiles, snatches it from Sam's hands. "So," he says while he lathers his jaw and neck. "Are you going to stand there and watch me shave?" He meets Sam's eyes in the mirror. "Because, that's kind of creepy, you know?"

Sam shrugs. Dean looks at the razor, says, "You sure this thing's sharp?"

As it turns out, it's sharp enough to cut through the thin skin of Dean's neck, through muscle and sinew, straight to the carotid.

The blood sprays the wall and the mirror through a gurgling sound deep in Dean's throat.

And Asia sings, _You can concern yourself with bigger things._

***

Sam says the words in a rush. Groundhog Day. You've died many times already. No, I don't know how many. I stopped counting ten Tuesdays ago.

The last part is a lie. He's seen Dean die exactly thirty-three times.

Dean nods, like he understands, and says, "I'm going to," he points in the general direction of the bathroom, "brush my teeth and shave, then we'll talk."

Sam stands – didn't think he had the energy – tries to stop Dean, but Dean's already tripping on one of Sam's boots. Sam watches as he falls: Dean's head bounces against the bed board twice, in rapid succession. It's not a killing blow, not that one; it only dazes Dean so that he doesn't break his fall on the floor. It's there that Dean's skull cracks open.

Sam stands, outstretched arm, and follows the dynamic of the accident - death number thirty-four -with the detached impassiveness of the powerless. The bloodstain grows larger around Dean's head, not as clear as carotid blood, dotted as it is with brain matter and shards of bone. It runs fast in the spaces between the tiles, straight dark lines, and then soaks into the coverlet where Dean had let it fall on the floor when he woke up.

Dad would always say – in a reassuring tone - that head wounds bleed a lot.

***

You need ten days to develop an addiction. Sam wonders how many days you need to stop reacting to your brother's death. Sam doesn't think he's desensitized, but probably that's what's happening.

Dean dies twice tripping on the stairs, and Sam, staying on top, catalogues the differences.

The first time, Dean's arm is jammed into the handrail, so his fall is cut abruptly short, his body hangs slack and lifeless from that strange handle. The second fall is a full tumble: Dean bounces and rolls to the bottom, then rolls over twice more on the sidewalk, until his body stops against the rear tire of a black SUV.

In both cases, Dean dies because of the head trauma. Sam hears the crack from atop the stairs - it used to be a sickening sound. It's weird, Sam thinks. Dean's taken so many blows in the head over his years of hunting, and they were never fatal.

Sam doesn't climb down while he on muses that; he sits down on a step, instead. He closes his eyes and waits for the notes to start. Sam convinced Dean not to shave, and then listened to Dean whining about his beard. "It itches," he'd said scratching his cheeks.

Some time passes before he wakes up, a handful of minutes. The time it takes for Dean to die.

***

On Tuesday forty-six, or is it forty-eight?, Dean shaves again.

Sam's testing theories, adding and subtracting elements to see if the product changes. So far all he's learned is he's no good at math.

So far he's changed: shower, breakfast and its content, tooth-brushing, the order in which he and Dean go downstairs, the route to the Mystery Spot. He's driven and let Dean drive, alternatively. He's made an infinite number of micro-choices. So far he's learned that there are endless ways for a body to die. He has intimate knowledge of forty-six ways, or forty-eight, maybe: he can't, for the life of him, remember if the car hit Dean two or three times.

Sam watches Dean as he shaves with his electric razor. Nothing happens in the bathroom, and they climb the stairs without accidents. Dean doesn't choke on his sausage. He has no allergic reaction to whatever shit he eats, either. Sam's extra-careful when he and Dean cross the street, and when Dean tries to pet the Labrador tied to the sign post, Sam drags him ahead by his arm.

Dean balks only a little, amused by Sam's weirdness. Sometimes he asks, "Did I die here? There?" Like it's some sort of joke, and Sam has to clench his hands tight so he won't deck him one.

He can't be angry for too long, doesn't have the time and besides, each time Dean dies, he forgets. But Sam doesn't, he remembers the panic on Dean's face, the pain of whatever injury causes his death. The moment when realization dawns in his eyes that he's going to die. _And it isn't a joke. It isn't a joke. It is not a fucking joke._

Experiencing death is a one-time trauma and at least that's not been taken from Dean. How would Dean feel if he remembered?

This Tuesday, Sam burns down the Mystery Spot house.

Dean's kind of excited to blow things up. When he says, "This is the way to go, Sammy."  
There's pride in his voice.

This Tuesday, Dean gets trapped in the burning building by a beam that falls across his legs.

***

Dean gets electrocuted again when he unplugs his razor on Tuesday number whatever-the-fuck.

Is there a reoccurrence somewhere Sam's not seeing? He chews on the thought for two Tuesdays before he realizes that death's as much chaotic as ever.

***

"Let me…" Sam feels so stupid, but not enough to stop. "Let me shave you," he says.

Dean takes a long look at him. Sam knows what he's seeing. Technically, Sam's not slept since that first night, and exhaustion is pulling him under. It dims everything like he's cocooned in a double layer of wool.

Dean spits white toothpaste foam into the sink, and then looks up, worried. "Your hands are shaking, Sam."

Sam clenches them together, rubs his eyes.

"Just this time," he says, gives the words the right pleading inflection, the one Sam knows Dean can't resist, whether Sam's used it to con Dean out of his fries or to extort a deadly promise. "You said it itches."

Dean's look is perplexed; Sam forgot Dean's complaint was from another Tuesday.

"Okay," Dean says, and dragging the 'o', sceptically.

Sam brings a chair into the bathroom, puts it beside the sink. He still got his blue Gillette razor on the bottom of his duffel bag – there was nothing wrong with it. He wets the brush under the faucet, shakes out the excess of water and then works it in circles into the soap tin until he gets a thick foam.

He lathers Dean's jaw and neck, applies the right pressure against the skin with the brush. Dean settles more into the chair, closes his eyes. "Scar my face and I'll kill you," he says without opening them, but it's a warning with no heat.

"You look like a Santa," Sam says when he's done, then giggles.

Dean opens his eyes then, says, "Sam?"

"Yeah, yeah, sorry."

Sam starts from the left sideburn, traces the contour with a finger, strokes the razor downward. For a while the only sound in the room is the rasp-rasp of the razor, the occasional noise trailing inside from the open window: voices say words Sam can't fully get, a car comes and goes. A dog whines; it must be the murderous Retriever.

Dean's silent and pliant, lets Sam turn his head so and so.

Then it happens, of course it does. Sam has the time to see the razor blade as it springs from its plastic casing the moment Sam's passing it over Dean's neck. It cuts deeply into the right place, the pressure in the artery sends a spray of blood onto Sam's face like a broken faucet. The blade falls on Dean's lap, lost in an amount of blood that can only be fatal.

Dean says, _Sam,_ but it's not even a word, not when his mouth is filled with blood.

Sam doesn't look up, and when Dean convulses he tightens his hand on his forehead so that Dean can't bend his head. Dean's blood's so red, such a rich color. It burns when it touches Sam's skin.

When Sam finally glances up, Dean's eyes are panicked, betrayed. Sam must look guilty as he stands there doing nothing. Maybe he's thinking Sam doesn't care.

Sam shrugs; it's not like there's something he can do. Besides, Dean's going to forget as soon as Tuesday dawns.

Dean's eyes bore into his own, wide and glazed, pleading. His blood is liquid fire on Sam's elbows until a wisp of wind from the window chills it.

Sam cups Dean's face. Tenderly he draws small comforting circles on Dean's temple with his thumb. Dean's eyes drop shut and he leans into his hand, as if reassured by Sam's soft touch. It's really the blood loss that's made his body heavy and slack.

"Don't worry," Sam says. "I'm going to wake up soon."

The way Dean's head falls forward, it looks like he nods.

\--


End file.
